One of the most powerful tools of any government agency is the consent of the citizen who is being governed at that moment. It seems that citizens do not quite understand the part of the Constitution having to do with the idea of consent. That’s not too surprising since the Constitution only references the consent of the citizen one time and that is in the Third Amendment which has to do with quartering troops in the home of the citizen.
The idea that a citizen must consent is seems to be purposely hidden from the citizen. Government acts as if it has the authority to act so long as a citizen does not object to their actions. The objection has been refined into a rather useless act so far as getting out of something being done to a citizen by a government actor after the citizen has consented. Consent is accepted by government when a person agrees to be governed but the government does not inform people that they must consent until the citizen has already fallen into a consent trap from which government will never agree to release them. Even worse, government will refuse to inform a citizen in a consent trap what it was that government used to put them into the consent trap in the first place.
For example, suppose government has no power to stop people from walking. If government wants to stop walkers, it merely claims that a license to walk will be issued to any citizen who wants to walk. When people agree to get the license, the government takes that as giving government the authority to use the police to request people to please show your license and registration.
Anyone who tries to walk without a license will be condemned by the people who have one. A jury will convict people who walk without a license as outlined in the common law and reinforced by the “code” which outlines who will be given a license.
In the court consent is referred to as part of the idea of Jurisdiction. In court Jurisdiction has so many meanings that the court will switch the meaning to avoid a citizen from discovering the court does not has the necessary power to proceed.
posted by Bob Graham @ 9:32 PM
